#millicent griffith

THE WEST WING S02E15: ELLIE written by Aaron Sorkin // Directed by Michael Engler

tww pride 2026: let me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time (millicent/abbey)

Rules: Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to five other writers! 💗

I was tagged by my dear @onekisstotakewithme a million years ago and I'm finally doing it! Woooo! Thanks for tagging me, friend! 💜💜

This is going to be fun and difficult, so let's see...

Breathe: The fic takes place after my favorite episode "Dead Irish Writers". The morning after her birthday party, Abigail Bartlet has to face the New Hampshire Medical Board and here I write about her thoughts on her way to Concord, as she tries to deal with her panic calmly, medically. I love writing about Abbey and this is the first fic where I try to delve into her thoughts and feelings about the MS scandal, her marriage to Jed, feminism and politics.

Anything Else I Need to Know: I love writing (and reading) campaign fics, I love writing missing scenes, I love the whole found family aspect of the show and the Bartlet's passionate relationship. I'm quite fond of 5+1 fics, too. This fic has elements of all of these things and it was inspired by CJ's quote from "The Fall's Gonna Kill You" where she tells Abbey how she walked into her and Jed's room during the campaign and "by then the two of you were so used to people walking in and out of your room that you didn't hear me open the door. And I was almost sure I saw you giving the President an injection of something." The quote made me wonder what other things the main characters must have seen during the campaign, knowing that Jed and Abbey are a very passionate couple and that they were used to people walking in and out of their room. There's implied sexual content (aka barbecuing), there's fun and awkwardness for everyone involved and there's just a little bit of angst in the end.

Mr. President Elect: Last year, I discovered a deleted scene from Season 5 that I absolutely LOVED! It has everything, Abbey and Jed and Josh, my second favorite character, being a complete goof. It's a short scene, so I decided to write a fic to follow and complete it and I had so much fun writing it. Abbey's POV, as usual.

The Pink Chanel Suit: As someone who's written academic articles about the Kennedys and the Camelot myth, this one was bound to happen. It's somewhat similar to "Breathe", as it depicts Abbey's thoughts and feelings in a crisis, but it's different, because the fic takes place after the shooting, or during "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen". There are many (intentional) parallels with Jackie Kennedy and JFK, Caesar and Ronald Reagan, but I blame Sorkin for the last one, because he based the whole story on the infamous assassination attempt on Reagan. I was also inspired by this photo, and I will never stop being sad that we never got to see the scene in canon.

The S(t)urgeon General: Choosing the fifth fic was incredibly hard, but I chose this one. Why? Because I LOVE Millicent Griffith, the Surgeon General who first appears in "Ellie" and then in "In the Room"/"Impact Winter". Millie is a wonderful character, and we are given a surprising amount of information about a character who only appears in three episodes (she's Ellie's godmother, went to Stanford, she's divorced, with two kids, knows Jed's college grades...). I wish we were given more scenes between the wonderful Mary Kay Place and Stockard Channing, but sadly, men can't write female friendships, so we only got a brief, cold, very medical discussion between them in Season 6. Anyway, this is a very short fic, a missing scene, taking place before "In the Room" and it shows a brief conversation between Abbey and Millie, where Abbey asks her friend to go to China with Jed and take care of him for her. Whenever I watch "In the Room", I'm surprised by Millie's calm reaction to Jed's invitation to go to China with them, when she's given twenty minutes to pack her bags. Y'know, as if someone told her about the trip in advance...

Special honorable mentions to: "Josh and the Jackass" (missing scene, campaign fic, featuring a sweet scene between Josh and Abbey, my favorite friend duo we never got to see) and "And Something for Us to Remember, too" (where Abbey and Jed attend the weddings of their daughters + CJ and Danny's).

soooo I think she should have a later in life romance with Evelyn Baker Lang (to the great surprise of Jed and Abbey).

thank you for being such a great presence in tww fandom!

Rewatching Ellie is always the right choice, ESPECIALLY when you come out of it with a brilliant take like this. Oh YES I love this.

Like, I don't fully remember the details Millie gives later on in the show? But iirc she's divorced and has a daughter with her ex husband. I can so easily see Abbey and Jed just kind of seeing her not date for a long time after the divorce, and assuming she's just not that interested anymore, until she one day tells them that she'd love to accept their invitation to the Bartlet farm for Christmas, as long as she can bring her new girlfriend?? Oh you've met her, Jed! Chief Justice Baker Lang.

I love the idea of a later in life romance here. They've both lived these full lives and Evelyn's on the Supreme Court now and Millicent is either still the Surgeon General or this is post canon and she's not anymore but either way they've both had such a.. not integral but also still important connection with the Bartlet administration and they weren't really looking for a new relationship at this point in their lives anymore but they are so very grateful that that IS what happened.

Millicent's daughter brags at school that her stepmom is THE Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and it's the coolest thing actually.

It's such a shame cause outside of like a handful of scenes with CJ in earlier seasons, we don't really see Abbey with friends? We hear she HAS friends, but we rarely see her with them. But I think Millicent Griffith would have to be it, out of the characters we know.